


Lingering Pain

by noveltea



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-22
Updated: 2010-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-07 11:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noveltea/pseuds/noveltea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the world...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lingering Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a ficathon over at loving_angel_69 back in 2004.
> 
> Disclaimer; just borrowing these characters for a little bit of fun.

**Lingering Pain**

  


  
**THE CHALLENGE  
September 29**   
_Give me release, witness me  
I am outside, give me peace  
Heaven holds a sense of wonder  
And I wanted to believe  
That I'd get caught up  
When the rage in me subsides_

_In this white wave  
I am sinking  
In this silence  
In this white wave  
In this silence  
I believe_   


How many hours had passed since that night? How many hours? How many days? It's been months since that night, standing in the rain, fighting the last stand we were to make as a team. At that stage we'd already lost one of our remaining teammates – we never asked Illyria what she did with his body, and she never told us. We all knew Gunn wouldn't last the fight. He didn't, his body broken in two by the onslaught. That left the three of us. Blue, Angel, and me.

Funny. The three of us had no right to be walking this earth – no matter how much of a hero Angel is claimed to be. The two of us revelled in massacre for years, never once feeling remorse. Or not until we were both cursed with a soul. A blessing in disguise, really, but it was always a curse at the forefront. As for Blue, she was a God in her own time. And not a very nice one at that.

We survived that night. Or our bodies did at least. I'm too sure how much of the rest of us survived.

Me? I still fight the good fight, when I have to. The Senior Partners really let it rip when they sent Hell to earth to kill us. It didn't mean that the general nasties of the night went away. In some ways, it just made them more persistent. I have plenty of anger left. There's still plenty of fight left in me. Sometimes Blue joins me; she hasn't changed much since then. I suppose losing your human guide will do that. As much as we used to joke about it, Angel and I are not qualified to help her fit into mainstream society. Not that she would anyway. Now she spends most of her time in solitude, no doubt dwelling on the 'good old days' of mass torture of slaves and whatnot. Good on her, I say. It's better than moping around like Angel.

We found a new place to go to ground; after the fight we had to escape notice. We disappeared and didn't re-surface for a few weeks. Apparently Angel had prepared this place when he first came to Los Angeles. It was an old, abandoned house on the outskirts of town. Below the ground there was an old bomb shelter, which had been converted into living quarters, perfect for us during the daylight hours. No one ever bothered us.

It wasn't odd that Angel shut himself off, now that I think about it. Who am I kidding? He's still shut himself off, but at least now I can get a word out of him. Couldn't do that a week ago. Mostly he stayed in his private room, which seemed to me to be a private prison cell, where he dwelt on all the bad things that had happened. Having a soul is a curse for demons like us. At first I tried to explain – or rather, argue – that everyone had chosen to fight willingly, knowing that the chances of them surviving the night were slim, at best. They all went in knowing that they would probably die. They did.

It wasn't his fault.

They certainly wouldn't blame him. They knew what they were up against, they knew what they were fighting for, and they chose to fight. Chose to stand up to the horrors, and hopefully make the world a safe place, if only for a moment. They wanted to take out the big guns of the demon world. There was no misconception that once the fight was over, the world would become all Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy land – and it was Angel who coined our last mission as a whole team so well: "For one bright, shining moment we can show them that they don't notice." They were blind to our assault on the members of the Black Thorn. They were most certainly not happy, either.

And so now we sit in a shadow of our former glory… that I didn't believe possible especially after the "good old days". Glory was reserved for the victors, for those who had the most kills, for those who survived with little-to-no markings of the battles they fought. The privileges of being a vampire – it can be difficult to kill us, and we're awfully good at killing people first. Stronger, faster and occasionally sometimes smarter.

Most of that's gone these days. The lustre of the fight has worn off, even for me. Sometimes I wonder whether I'm any better than Angel. Sure, I get out more, beat some things up, and the come home. He hasn't moved from his little hiding spot the entire time we've been here.

Maybe he's wishing for heaven. For a place to go after here. Sometimes I wonder if he realises that there's no heaven for vampires. When someone kills a vampire – stakes them in the heart, beheads them, whatever – the body turns to dust, and the wind spreads the dust so thin that it never reaches the earth. No, there's no heaven for demons like us.

We only have each other.

These days it seems to be more of a brotherhood, comrades-in-arms relationship that we share. At least, it is when we don't start bickering. The bloody oaf never listens. But we fight, side-by-side, and we watch each other's back. That much hasn't changed in all these years. But once we used to be more.

Sometimes we still are.

It still amazes me how much pain and torment can be forgotten when you can hear anything but the sound of flesh on flesh, or the sounds a lover makes in the midst of… well, it wasn't quite passion, but close enough. Angel needs to forget all the time. Sometimes I do, too.

Every time Angel starts murmuring about his curse – and it ain't exactly like he's the only victim of that ruddy curse, either – he starts muttering about what would happen, what had happened before. He's talking nonsense, of course, and it's not exactly like Wes or any number of us have told him that the "perfect moment" is unlikely to happen with anyone other than who his thoughts always rest on. Maybe that was Buffy once, now I'm not so sure. I miss her, so much that it hurts sometime, and I think that I should go looking for her. Maybe I'm afraid of what I might find out. Maybe that's the same reason Angel doesn't go looking for her. Then again, it's awfully difficult to tell with him – not only did he have a thing for Buffy, but also for Cordelia (of all people) and that blonde werewolf (which would have seriously put a dampener on their relationship three nights a month, but otherwise seemed quite a likely match – too bloody bad her sent her of, with her family, no less).

So it's just us. Us, and Blue… but she rarely takes notice of us.

I do what I can to comfort him. If it means giving my body for one night so that he can have a release from another burden on his shoulders, then I can do that. After all, we watch each other's backs. Sometimes the enemies aren't always present when they attack.

Maybe – just maybe – we'll get what he truly wants: release, and the sense of wonder that comes from finally being freed from the rage and the anguish that are his memories.


End file.
